Twenty-five
rand to the pound! If the virus doesn’t get you our currency will.
One good
thing that ought to emerge from the almighty financial morass that the country and
indeed the world and most of its people find themselves in is that we should tell
the ratings agencies to take a long walk on a short plank. Their stock in trade
is that they help investors to evaluate risk, but their record suggests otherwise.
Their analysts are no better informed nor successful at forecasting than anyone
else. But they have created a niche in an environment where capital market participants
are reluctant to move far without the blessing of a ratings agency. Any decent evolutionary
process would normally populate that niche with swamp weed instead of costly
fortune tellers.
Inevitably
cooping people up at home in an age where there is unlimited scope to
communicate with each other is going to have consequences. Not only has the
flow of jokes about this deadly germ exploded on the internet but speculation
and conspiracy theories have also blossomed. A particularly alarming development is the vehemence
with which the Chinese are protecting their version about the origin and progress
of the pandemic. Something looks very odd in the charts from that vast country.
The reality of
the obstacles in the path of our government’s awesome attempts to control the
Corona virus emerged this week when the minibus taxi industry ignored the
regulations about social distancing and returned to the status quo ante. They utterly
rejected the limit on passenger numbers and ignored the minister’s despairing
bleat that “alright but all passengers must wear face masks”. This is only the
simplest illustration of the difficulties faced in trying to enforce a lockdown
in a country where for most, crowding, discomfort and danger is a fact of life
in their struggle to survive.
Little wonder
that there are so many people who just don’t get it. In particular the leaders
of the unionised workers in South Africa are being cruelly mendacious by waving
the wage agreement documents which have now been utterly overtaken by
circumstances. No one is interested in their plight anymore. The appalling numbers of unemployed people in
this land are no longer special or unusual as vanishing customers and clients
all over the world are forcing employers to lay off staff in ever increasing
numbers. So far government staff have escaped. But not for much longer. The world
will certainly look very different when this is all over.
There’s an
intriguing fuss breaking out about privacy now that it has been announced that
the government can and will track our movements by following which cell phone
mast our constant companion is connected to at any time. This Orwellian 1984 scenario
has been here ever since the introduction of cell phones. Indeed, there are
apps one can use to monitor this information for your own device. The concern,
however, is that this information might be abused by the overzealous overseers
of our behaviour at this time. After all they are reported to be arresting people
for walking in their own gardens (or at any rate the garden of their complex).
While it is
probably well known to those who paddle in the murky ponds of remuneration
theory and practice, the current dispute about civil servants’ pay has revealed
that there are no fewer than 19 grades into which employees of the state are separated
and categorised when discussing status
and pay. That partly explains why negotiation season is so tense and fraught.
There are just so many nits to pick. And on the subject of pay it appears that
even those professional soccer players who are egregiously over-rewarded because
of television rights are also now wondering what their industry will look like
when the virus is defeated. Have we got used to not having sport to watch? Do
we prefer a quiet night at the jigsaw puzzle? Have the sponsors begun to rethink
their spending? Is it even possible to live on less that a million a week?
Keep safe
please.
James
Greener
Friday 3rd
April 2020
